Black Perspectives; Wornie Reed

Good evening welcome to black perspectives. A half hour feature focusing on black issues information and lifestyles in the communities of Boston and the south shore. I'm your host Philip Hart in tonight's edition of black perspectives. We're going to discuss the human role Trotter Institute with its director Dr. Warren read the William Monreal Trotter Institute here at UMass Boston is nationally known for its research publications and forums on issues of major concern to the black community. And tonight's topic we're going to delve into the present status of the Institute and its future agenda. So welcome to black perspectives warning. Thank you. The main reason I wanted you to come on the black perspectives I wanted to kind of give us an update on activities at the Trotter Institute is engaged in now. And before you get into that wanted to give our audience a little background as to what the Trotter Institute is all about what it does as an interest Institute here at the university. The way of Monreal try to institute for the study of black culture was stablished in 1984 as a result of concerns by the black faculty and staff at the university here

and others including the Black Legislative Caucus for haven't a center that would address some of the issues relating to the black community locally as well as nationally and also to carry on in a victor no scholarly way. Research of an academic character relates to the black experience. And so we have been since 1984 carried out these kinds of activities along the lines of several programs I could mention those quickly if you would like. Yes we have several programs one of the programs is a Research Associates program in which scholars locally at the campus and at other campuses and also in the City affiliate themselves with the institute to carry out social policy types of research as well as some cultural and other types of academic research. We also have forums usually occur and on Thursdays each

week of the semester where some of this research is presented as well as some of the issues that are brought up in the local community. Another one of our programs is the resident Fellows program where we have visiting scholars to spend a couple a year with us. This year we have two such fellows two senior scholars and we have a publications program where we publish the results of the research. So you've been with the Institute as a director since 1985 correct. Right since 1985. And where did you come from before you came here to University Massachusetts. I was at Morgan State University I was director of the Institute for the Urban Research Center for Urban Research. Now the institute itself was engaged in several major projects now one of them is a Black Agenda Project focusing on. The Boston area and James Jennings is heading up that project can you tell us a

little bit about that particular effort. Yes James Janan is the director of the institute's community research and technical assistance program. And in that program we respond to requests from community agencies and from individuals and from legislators to do research to provide technical assistance. And one of the major requests. Given to us last year was to assist in the development of a black policy agenda for Boston and we have been providing technical assistance with various groups individuals throughout the community to come up with some major statement about the situation of blacks and some several areas of life and also to offer and provide some guidelines for our future. Work in these areas

and we are heavily involved in that. And what I mean by the different areas of life would be health politics economic development and so on. And this is a major effort of they try to institute to assist in this this effort as a result of the trout institutes involvement as providing technical assistance we have people from diverse perspectives participating on the same team. And I think that's a great asset. So what do you hope to see as an outcome of the black policy in the project. Well we are developing a document as a result of the commit is this project. That will have a set of very general prescriptions about how we might go about addressing some of the problems that we have locally and they kind of capsule in nature that is they're not very detailed but they are the result of a lot of work. So it's that in the future when the agency is

community leaders want to address themselves on these issues then we will have provided a framework that is a statement of where the community stands for a relative to what it thinks should be done. So is there are there plans to have a conference or reform around this. Yes what is happening now is a draft statement. These principles and sometimes in the very near future there will be a citywide conference where the community will be invited and to offer their input to this process to refine these principles and to to perhaps give its endorsement to some of these principles such that it can be reflective of the considerations of the entire community. Now you also have a nationwide study on the status of black Americans going out which is obviously also a major study. Can you tell us a little bit about that.

Yes that's probably the most. Significant a wide range and aspect of our work and Nineteen Eighty-Four the National Research Council of the National Academy of Sciences got significant funding to conduct a study that they have labeled as an update of the guide to MIT all study that is to talk about the status of blacks since the 1940s and significantly to off policy statements about what we do about these conditions that they describe. Well the black social scientists throughout the country have been quite concerned about this study because of the way the study team was selected. A number of very and noted like scholars have been omitted from this study and it seems that while this study does include a lot of people who have some commitment to fantasy and some commitment to principles principles of

equality the study seems to be heavily made up of persons who. Trying to limit the role of the government in helping to overcome some of these problems so a number of persons across the country especially in academia think that it's extremely important to be concerned about this study by the NRC because so many people view it as a means of putting scholars stamp on an area logical change in this country which is trying to push the government to have to be severely limited in its ability. Our commitment to helping to deal with some of the problems especially those problems related to race. So as a result of that the try to institute in 1986 began a similar study. And I will study of course is not funded at 2 million dollars as is the National Research Council. But I will study is funded by the goodwill

of a number of scholars across the country who have contributed their time free to this project. In fact we have had over 50 scholars to make significant contributions in terms of writing papers parts of papers as a result of our request for them to do so. And I will study consists of blacks and white consists of individuals from prestigious schools as well as small school consists of scholars from historically black schools as well as private agencies and. Without any specific logical stamp. But most of these people do believe that the role of the government should not be severely limited. Other than that there's no specific ideological commitment of these individuals except that we do want a wider discussion of these issues than we thought we would get with the NRC study. Is there a parallel between the areas that are being covered by a study where yes the.

NRC study has five areas they deal with the employment income and occupations they deal with political participation deal with health economics. And. They deal with an area called social and cultural change. In those five areas we duplicate them. But we think that the issues around a black family currently important enough that we should address that also so we have six study groups in comparison there five study groups of six one deals with the black family and we have us some of the nation's top experts on a black family working on this one including Robert Hill as the chair and Andrew Bell lead the vice chair. Who are some other end individuals involved in the Trotter Institute study. OK I'm the director of the study and we have two co chairs. One is Lucius Barkha who is the Gail Horne

professor of public affairs at Washington University. The other one is James Blackwell and promise Oseola just here at UMass Boston. In addition to that we have such persons as Bob Dent left from the sociology department here and a former dean of the School of Education at Boston University. We have here with Jones who is dean of the social work at the University we have Charles Willie at Harvard. But we're not just limited to this area we have people from from Xavier University in New Orleans. We have Bill and Lee as I just mentioned from Maryland. We have Michael Preston from us see we have Diane pinned Hughes from Illinois good range. So we have people from all over the country from a number of disciplines and we have people such as James coma and a number of prominent people and a number of now so prominent individuals

who are some individuals doing work with the National Research Council staff. Well. The chair of that study is a professor emeritus of sociology from Cornell. Robyn Williams did some work on minorities some years ago and many say has a commitment to these kinds of issues. The director of the study is a is a black economist from Yale. That is no black person at the kind of top of this study except for the day to day operations. One of the things that concerned a lot of us is that Glenn Lowry was on two panels two panels to panels and many of us know his his position which is counter to that of most black scholars. We were young Wilson from a sociologist who wrote a book some 10 years

ago about the decline and significance of race is there. Universities University of cargo Yes. So but we don't have people on a say like James Blackwell. Like. I should say like we don't have James Blackwell we don't have child Willy on the other hand there are a number of good people in the study. Every time the black scholars raised a fuss they would go out and add other black scholars. Note to the study. And so fortunately they were they did add Professor James Dennett who has been working on this study throughout its its time period. And so they have a number of good people which we're just concerned about the lack of black scholars the failure of the you know RC to use black scholars and conceptualize in this study to develop in this study most of the black scholars were added after this study had been extensively.

When we take a break right now Warney come back pick up on that point. We're going to pause briefly for this public service announcement you're listening to black perspectives on WNBA FM ninety one point nine. Please stay tuned we will resume our discussion with Dr. Warner Reed director of the William Monroe Trotter Institute after this message. Our fundraiser may be over but our need for your support is never over. If you have not made your commitment to support WNBA Af-Am with your dollars please take a moment to call us for appropriate form. We always need your help to support our kind of public radio for greater Boston. Ninety one point nine is. The number to call is Area 6 1 7 9 2 9 7 9 2 9. Or you can simply send a check to WUOM BFM. University of Massachusetts at Boston. Boston Massachusetts 0 2 1 2 5. 3 3 9. Three. Thank you. Back from our brief intermission here on WNBA FM ninety one point nine You're listening to black

perspectives. I'm your host fell apart on tonight's edition of black perspectives we're discussing the William Monroe Trotter Institute here at UMass Boston with his director Dr. Warney Reed and I want to before we went on a break you were talking about the lack of input in the conceptualization of the National Research Council study on the status of black Americans. Is the NRC aware of the Trotter Institute's parallel effort and what kind of reaction have you gotten if they are aware of this. Yes they have but they have never contacted us directly. They even had some of the letters inviting participants to what was circulating around at the NRC headquarters so they are very much aware of this and they also know about the. This the status of many of the scholars on our study is such that they will not be able to ignore it.

Right right. Yes. So what do you see as the outcome of the tritone Institute study what do you hope to achieve. OK well. We we have we are very much concerned about the NRC study coming out and what might have been a vacuum. Just looking at this historically we had the we had all study in the 40s before you go I want you for audience members who are not familiar with an American dilemma just briefly. Yeah they got to me at all was a Swedish social scientists who was recruited to this country to do a major study on blacks in the in the early 40s. And the study came out in the middle 40s. Which really described the nature of discrimination in this country and has some prescriptions about what we should do. But many blacks and others had some questions about their prescriptions but they weren't able to rise up and confront me at all until much much later. And even some scholars didn't want to do it because the study was an understudy right.

It's just that they were concerned about the prescriptions that America had to deal with the dilemma and it's mine. Yeah. Many scholars didn't like the fact that. They were they would argue that America had to deal with institutionalized racism which was not something in someone's mind is there only some structural changes. OK so that was a problem. But no one paid any attention to this and because it was much later in 1966 that James Coleman headed a study of education of blacks in this country. But once again blacks began to have problems with it. But not until then and get those comments or complaints out until after the study was out. OK. And that happened also in the 60s with the Morhange study. Well what we're hoping to do is to be sure that at the at the very moment the very week month that the NRC study comes out that we subject that study to the widest possible criticism that is not to say we are going to be critical of it. We are going

to analyze and see to what extent we would agree with it and also at the same time we want to offer what we think would be the situation of blacks in this country plus some social policy prescriptions. So you have to hope that. With a publication or publications and obviously some local national media coverage of your efforts. Yes we we plan to have a national conference to release the results of our study. Presumably we would also critique the other state. This would be under the auspices of the trier Institute of the arts and yes all of the aspects of the trial yesterday. We already have a grant in hand. Two holes would have been here in Boston that would be right in Boston. Some people tried to get us to haul it elsewhere but we think the trial is too is here and the conference should be here. We have gotten a grant from a foundation to hold a national conference foundation realize

that 2 million dollars could be given to a foundation to conduct the other state in say only a few thousand can be given to the UMass Boston to hold a national conference to have a wider discussion of these issues from very responsible scholars. So you hope to end up with I think you said four publications as a result of you try to study. These scholars responded to this. To such an extent. That our original plans was to have one volume. Yeah but so many people wrote pieces we would ask for 10 pages and they would and wanted to day's work and they would give us two or three weeks work and give us 20 or 30 a 50 page paper so we actually have material for volumes. We will have a volume on health. We'll have a Y M on the black family and we'll have a volume on education and another volume will include such things as political participation. Yeah. Economics and

social and cultural change as well as. Criminal justice issues. So. Who's going to publish the volumes. Well we are we are going to publish them but we are arranging with the mass press to distribute them because we're going to publish them because we can't go through the long time. Period that it takes to do publish this work with a publishing house like UMass press. So we're going to go straight and publish them I would say yes but they will assist us in that and they will also distribute the books. So what timeline are you working on in terms of the volumes themselves in the national conference. Well. Right now it looks like. So we can perhaps anticipate a conference in the fall perhaps and the release of the volumes.

Absolutely yes. Sometime in the early. Is that some a time line of the National Research Council. Well I don't know. They haven't said exactly when they're going to release the indications that they might be given but they will be released this year. So in the context of the things that we talked about earlier what how would you assess the state of the black scholar. Here in 1909. General in general. I think we're in good shape. Among those of us that exist but we're having difficulty replenishing that would say I was because the numbers are going down as fewer and fewer blacks are going to graduate education expansion into those fields that will lead them into university teaching. So we have to get shape. But in terms

of a commitment among social scientists to look at the kinds of issues that the black community is facing I think has been redoubled over the past few years and we might have Ronald Reagan to thank for that. So you think on the one hand it's good news on the other hand is bad news. Right. Tell us about some of the other projects that I know you some of the research associates of the Trotter Institute are engaged in some interesting projects can you give us a little sense of what some of things are going on there. One of our projects is in economics. We take a look kind of. Follow up really to the emerging black community in the area of economics and that we take a look at the economic picture of blacks in Boston we have several studies that we have done in the interim we've done some on youth employment and youth training programs by James Blackwell we have done

on looking at regional employment issues by Harrison. And we've done some Look look at with Professor cotton but now what we're doing is. A more extensive look at exactly what's happened and what does the labor market look like why are blacks and what are the trends and what's going on here what is the nature of the plot was the nature of the unemployment. So we're taking a very systematic look at that and we hope to be with that before the end of this year that Greater Boston Greater Boston yes we are possibly going to be limited to Boston. It's going to be another study we have done as a study of black infant mortality which everyone probably knows is really a serious issue. Right. The black rate is twice the white rate. In fact the black rate is higher than some developing countries. OK. And that's true in Boston as well as

nationally and you know States and so we're talking taking a look at this trying to see if we can identify some of the factors related to it. Luckily those are a couple of the. Primary research projects that we have going on at the institute. So as a policy research institute in a think tank as some people refer to the trans to how do you go about. Bridging the gap between research and trying to get policy as a result of that research. It's interesting we weave in his work several ways and one way that one of the projects that made us quite well-known was the emerging black community and the statement in one state is there that blacks were NAPPA dissipating equitably in the economic boom. Well as a result of that one of our scholars has been working with city hall to help them to put teeth into the Boston jobs ordinates program.

We do. Research that is of a policy nature quite often and we ship it the way of it might be Do we did the work on youth unemployment that actually went around talking to employment offices around the city. So we've been quite successful and have been the policy makers. Relate to the work that we put out. What do you see in the future for the. Trotter Institute. Well one of the things that will be done in the future we are going to be doing even more. Research. And House as we enhance our research capabilities. And that's that's that's one thing that that will be happening. Another is that we plan to bring in some funds and I think in the environment that

we're n that we will be looked at very favorably if we can bring advances. So we're going to put some emphasis on grants and ship in the near future. That's something I've done a lot of in the past I just haven't had a lot of. Time to do that even though we have been getting small grants every year. So about 30 seconds any gems of wisdom you want to leave our audience with. I don't know except that I would really like for the audience to come to some of that what events we usually have something going on almost every Thursday. Thursday at 2:30 there's at 2:30 in Wheatley Hall has pretty much every week. It's pretty much every week so we'll like people to come participate. That's. One thing I would like. OK good. I want to thank you for joining us on black perspectives tonight you've been listening to black perspectives on I think my guest Dr. Warney read for his contribution on tonight's topics which we delved into the William Monreal Trotter Institute and its activities here at the University of Massachusetts Boston. Special thanks goes out to Tanya Warren for

technical assistance and to the producer of black perspectives Gary Pierre Louis. If you have any questions please do not hesitate to contact Gary Pierre Louis at 9 2 9 7 7 0 0. I'm your host fell apart as you tune in for more info and Foreigner programs here on black perspectives. Thank you.